Variants
What is a Variant? A nuzlocke variant is a different way to nuzlocke for people who have become desensitized to the pain veterans looking for a new way to play, or people who think a regular nuzlocke is too vanilla for themselves. Frequent server favourites are randomizations, soul-links, wedlockes, monotypes, and hardcores. These are the basic variants that are recommended heavily if you have never done a variant before, as they usually require very little memory. But what exactly are they? Soul-Links Yes, it says randomizations first, but the process of arranging that is a pain in the ass to explain and really, you just have to scroll down, so deal with it. Anyhow, this variant is what frequently brings people to the Nuzlocke Discord in the first place. The basic idea is that two people play a nuzlocke synchronously, and their pokemon are linked by dimensional soul fabric that kills the Pokemon if their linked partner dies as well. These pokemon are linked by encounters, so your starter will always be linked to your partners. Each capture must be a capture on both ends, so if your friend can't catch that Spearow but you've caught yourself a Yanma, tough toenails, bucko, you can't use it. In addition, just because they're linked, doesn't mean they have to both be used. You don't have to use that Rattata because your friend wants to use his Houndoom. IMPORTANT NOTE: Soul-Links are incredibly hard to pull of without frequent communication, and is best done between two friends who can communicate easily. Monotype Easily the most self explanatory variant. A nuzlocke done using only Pokemon of one type. Highly recommended to choose a type that can easily be obtained right out of the gate, and, if you can handle it, randomizing can usually make the process easier. Wedlocke Imagine a Soul-Link but you have no friends and you have to use paired Pokemon. That's essentially what a Wedlocke is. Basically, for each route, you now have two encounters (or you can pair them with two routes, but that can be a little tough to track), which you'd think would be super helpful right? WRONG! Because whichever one of those two you send out, you can now only switch between those two pokemon until one of them dies. If your other Pokemon lives, you can now catch (using valid encounters) or pair (with another unpaired pokemon, far more common if you mark keep each route as one capture). Now, as the general idea is that these pokemon are married, they would be of different genders, which I guess can increase difficulty, but you can have gay Pokemon, we don't care. Hardcore As if regular nuzlockes can't be enough of a kick directly into your genitals, some moron decided to make them even harder by adding a couple of rules. 1. No healing in battles, 2. Set mode (no switching after your opponents Pokemon faints) 3. Your Pokemon can't be a higher level then the next leader/champions ace and 4. Only 1 Pokemon, or more specifically, only one of static/wild. Randomizing nicole u said you'd write it, now do it Category:Variants